


Into the Sunset

by Enide_Dear



Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: I will tell you how, Just how, M/M, and love and fear of loosing one another, and the valar is just going to have to deal with it, build a ship?, did a wood elf and a dwarf, how, look they literally sail into the sunset togehter, one that can sail across existens itself none the less, out of pure spite and collaboration, so here it is, the strongest ship that ever sailed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-28
Updated: 2018-05-28
Packaged: 2019-05-14 19:58:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14776281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Enide_Dear/pseuds/Enide_Dear
Summary: Gimli gets gravely wounded in the battle for Helms Deep, and Legolas has to handle the fragility of mortals, which he does...badly. So badly that he might end up changing the World as they know it and breaking every unspoken law and taboo about elves and dwarves.Because when the son of Thranduil and the most stubborn dwarf in existance sets their minds to something, not even the Valar themselves can stop them.





	Into the Sunset

“Is he going to be alright?” Eomer asked in a hushed voice outside the little chamber. 

Aragorn could only shrug. 

“I have done what I can and dwarven heads are notoriously thick. But only time will tell when he wakes up and in what state.”

Eomer gave him a look that said he thought Aragorn was being daft on purpopse. 

“Not the dwarf,” he said softly. “*Him.*”

Inclining his head gently towards the pale figure of an elf sitting unmoving next to the small cot, so still one might have thought he was the one who had taken a hammer to the head. Pale grey eyes stared without blinking at the burly form under the covers and Aragorn knew enough about elves to know that legolas was watching Gimli’s spirit fighting to return to his body. Had there been an other elf around - Galadriel, Elrond, perhaps even Glorfindel, they could have aided that spirit back, but Legolas was a mere Sindarin elf. What little magic his people had was tied to nature and protection, not healing. 

“It is...difficult for him,” Aragorn sighed. “I think he is still in shock over how easily we mortals die and how quickly things can change.”

“People die. The world changes.” Eomer shook his head. “That is part of life.”

“Not his life. But I will try to talk to him.”

 

Legolas didn’t look up when Aragorn entered the room, not when he put a hand on his shoulder. His own archer hands - still bloody from the battle, and one finger seemed broken to Aragorn’s healer eyes - where clutching Gimli’s. 

“You need to eat and drink. And get your own wounds tended to.” Aragorn said as he leaned down to check on Gimli’s breathing. The breaths came slow and steady - a good sign. “I will stay here and send for you should anything happen.”

“I will stay here.” Since he almost never cared for his title, it was easy to forget that the easy going happy elf was indeed a prince. Legolas had never during their long journey in anyway given prominency to his title but the tone in his voice right now could have commanded armies. He would not be moved. 

Aragorn sighed and busied himself with Gimli instead. The massive bruise in his head along with the obvious fracturing of his skull made his head look swollen and even uglier than normal but he had no doubt the brave dwarf had gladly taken such a wound to protect the glittering caves and the human refugees hiding within. His eyes were clear when Aragorn lifted a lid and his breath smelled no worse than usually, his pulse was steady and his nerves reacted when pinched, so in all Aragorn had good hopes of his recovery. 

If Legolas would recover though was a more complex question. 

“If I could, I would give a thousand years of my life - nay more - to save him.” Legolas said softly when Aragorn’s examination was done.

“You love him so much?” Shaking his head to himself Aragorn tried to figure out how to reach through to his friend. Because should Gimli die now, it seemed likely that Legolas would too. Broken hearts could be fatal to elves.

“I do. I would do anything to save him.” Legolas voice was low and raspy, very unlike his normal warm and happy voice. 

Being old and wise enough to not try to understand such silly questions as *how* or *why* when he looked between the elf and the dwarf Aragorn decided that perhaps brutal honesty could wake Legolas from his apahty. Even anger would be better than this deathly stillness. 

“But you cannot. Barring all ill luck and war, Gimli is still a dwarf and he will life another two hundred years, perhaps. You are not a child, Legolas. You know this.”

A glint of anger lit Legolas eyes. 

“That is mortal thinking. i do not care about a hundred years, or two hundred, or a single turn of the seasons. I care about *now*! I am not such a coward to no love because I might lose it!”

“And yet here you are refusing to even leave him, afraid to lose even a few moments.”

Legolas sighed, closing his eyes for a few moments. 

“Aye, I would keep him forever with me if I could. If only my father had been entrusted with one of the great Rings,” he mused quietly. “Then I could have preserved him forever.”

Aragorn said nothing. He had his own private musings that anyone who had met Thranduil even once had probably gone ‘Hell no!’ and thrown any potential Ring of Earth in a volcano. But he couldn’t very well say that. 

“He would have become a wretched creature of pain and misery under such circumstances. As would any mortal. What would you have done? Kept him on a leash to walk around the woods like your people did with Gollum?”

It was an unnecessary cruel thing to say and it had the desired effect; Legolas snapped out of his despair with a jolt of anger. 

“It is not natural, dying so fast!” He shouted. 

“It is natural for him. For me. The Valars gift…”

Legolas spat out something in elvish that was at once obscene, heretic and scatologic. 

“Legolas!” Aragorn cried in dismay and then shut his mouth when he realized how much like his mother he had sounded. 

“There must be a way to keep him alive and healthy and...and to keep him *Gimli*!” The glint in Legolas’ eyes made Aragorn glad the One Ring was half a world away. Fury made Legolas seem taller and desperation made him dangerous; Aragorn involuntary took a step back. “And I will find it. The Valar themselves cannot stop me.”

It was somehow just like the son of Thranduil to demand the impossible. Having grown up with Noldor, Aragorn had always considered Sindarin and Sylvan elves to be a bit...flimsy and Legolas had done nothing to change that opinion. Not until now.

Aragorn had seen the anger of Galdadriel, of Elrond, even of Glorfindels anger unleashed at the Ringwraiths but he had never seem wrath from an elf like this. This was not the cold white distant anger of Noldori but an anger that burned as red and hot and *present* as a war beacon or a forest fire. It was just as strong and a lot more lethal. 

Aragorn opened his mouth and was about to say something - anything - to diffuse the situation when there came a low moan from the sick bed and Gimli’s eyes started to flutter open. Legolas flew to Gimli’s side like a gull to the sea and just like that the spell was broken. Gone was the Prince, half-mad with grief and pride and back was the wood elf, all but crying with relief as he sank down next to the cot and wrapping skinny arms around his love. 

Feeling his presence was not so much unwanted as completely forgotten, Aragorn stepped out softly but not before a few words reached him. 

“Ah, laddie.” Clumsily but lovingly Gimli stroke the blonde head. “Didn’t think I’d leave you, did you?”

“No. Of course not. I know you will never leave me.” If Legolas words came with something like a sob, then Gimli didn’t mention it. Instead he said: 

“My final count was forty-two though, so where does that leave us?”

“You beat me by one, meleth, but I do not grudge you the game, so glad am i to see you on your own legs!”

“Ow! On my own back i think, at least for now.”

“Yes, lazy dwarf. But we will get you up on your feet soon enough.”

 

Closing the door gently on them, Aragorn smiled to himself. Whatever madness had come over Legolas, it was gone now. Gimli would keep him grounded and see to it that the elf didn’t do anything foolish. At least for the present.

 

Epilogue:

“You are mad, elf.”

“I am building this boat and you can’t stop me.”

“You have lived all your life in the woods! Have you ever even seen a ship before?!”

“That is slander, of course I have. We both sailed on the coursair ships during the War of the Ring, didn’t we?”

“That was a hundred and fifty years ago! And up a river, not across the sea! And prince Imrahil lent us sailors!”

“This part should be ‘up’, don’t you think?”

“Good Aulë, you have no idea what you are doing do you? Step aside, let me fix that else this thing will sink before it leaves the harbour. Hand me that hammer, there’s a good lad.”

“...”

“...”

“So, do you know anything more about actually sailing a ship than you know about building it?”

“Well. I know more about it than you do, at least. This here is the sail, and this is the...um...”

“The rudder, you daft elf! That settles it. I’m going to have to go with you, just to make sure you don’t sail this thing up a cliff and drown half a mile from the shore.” 

“Oh yes, a dwarf in the Undying lands, the Valar are going to love that.”

“Since when do you care about what the Valar or anyone else thinks about where you bring your dwarf? Besides I look forward to seeing your father again. It will be the most awkward family reunite in history.”

“He will hide in a wine barrel, I’m sure. Both figuratively and literally. And no, I don’t care what the think. I need you beside me, now and forever.”

“Forever it is then, laddie. Hop aboard. Let’s see how well a ship built by a dwarf and a wood elf floats.”

“Look at this. The strongest ship that ever sailed, I would say.”

“Aye, I agree. Off into the sunset it is.”


End file.
